Ecstatic failurism asserts that all our attempts to obey will fail, thereby making us the recipients of greater grace. But God does not exhort us to obey just to teach us that we cannot hope to obey. He exhorts us to obey to teach us that, by grace, we can obey, and therein lies hope. The hope of the gospel is that God, whose law and whose character do not change, changes us into those who obey in both motive and deed. Rather than live lives under the Law, believers live lives in which the Law is now in a sense under us, as a sure path for pursuing what is good, right and pleasing to the Lord. Contrary to the tenets of ecstatic failurism, the Law is not the problem. The heart of the Law-follower is.
“Christian, you cannot obey the Law. Your certain failure is a means to show forth the grace of God when you repent.”
“We don’t need more lists of how to be a better spouse/parent/Christian. We need more grace.”
“My life strategy for today: fail, repent, repeat.”
Sounds good, doesn’t it? These sorts of statements comprise a growing body of commentary that finds the Law of the Bible to be a crushing burden, not just for the unbeliever, but for the believer as well. Enough with “checkbox Christianity”, these voices tell us. No more “how to‘s” on righteousness. In the righteousness department you are an epic fail, so toss out your checklists and your laws, and cast yourself on grace.
failure gets a makeover
In recent years church leaders have rightly spoken out against moralistic therapeutic deism, which is really just a fancy name for legalism – the idea that we earn God’s favor through external obedience to a moral code. Moralistic therapeutic deism, as in the days of Jesus, pervades our culture and even our churches. And it’s as harmful today as it was when Jesus spoke against it two thousand years ago.
I fear, however, that as an antidote, some are now articulating an equally skewed view of grace. I have come to call this view “ecstatic failurism” – the idea that believers cannot obey the Law and will fail at every attempt. But more than that, that our failure is ultimately cause to celebrate because it makes grace all the more beautiful.
These days, obedience has gotten a bad name. And failure has gotten a make-over.
Interestingly, Jesus battled legalism in a different way than the ecstatic failurist. Rather than tossing out the Law or devaluing obedience to it, he called his followers to a deeper obedience than the behavior modification the Pharisees prized. He called for obedience in motive as well as in deed, the kind of godly obedience that is impossible for someone whose heart has not been transformed by the gospel. Rather than abolish the Law, Jesus deepened his followers’ understanding of what it required, and then went to the cross to ensure they could actually begin to obey it.
set free to obey
The gospel sets us free from sin, but it does more than that. It sets us free to obey (Rom 6:16). And what are we to obey? The Law, that once gave death but now gives freedom. So, don’t miss this: behavior modification should absolutely follow salvation. It just occurs for a different reason than it does in the life of the unbeliever, as the outworking of a changed heart.